Advisory Board Chair
Judge Robert Maclay Widney Chair and Professor
Sol Price School of Public Policy

Leonard D. Schaeffer is the founding Chairman & CEO of WellPoint (now Anthem), the nation's largest health benefits company by membership. He is currently the Judge Robert Maclay Widney Chair and Professor at the University of Southern California (USC) and is a Senior Advisor to TPG Capital, a private equity firm.

Schaeffer was Chairman & CEO of WellPoint from 1992 through 2004 and continued as Chairman through 2005. In 1986, Schaeffer was recruited as CEO of WellPoint’s predecessor company, Blue Cross of California, when it was near bankruptcy. He managed the turnaround of Blue Cross and the IPO creating WellPoint. During his tenure as CEO, WellPoint completed 17 acquisitions and endowed four charitable foundations with assets of over $6 billion. Under Schaeffer’s leadership, the value of the company grew from $11 million to over $49 billion.

Under Schaeffer’s leadership, WellPoint was selected by Fortune as America’s Most Admired Health Care Company for six consecutive years; named by BusinessWeek as one of the 50 best performing public companies for three consecutive years; and identified by Forbes magazine as America’s best large health insurance company. Schaeffer was selected by BusinessWeek as one of the Top 25 Managers of the Year and by Worth as one of the “50 Best CEOs in America.”

Schaeffer's public service included appointments as Administrator of the federal Health Care Financing Administration (now CMS) where he was responsible for the Federal Medicare and Medicaid programs, Assistant Secretary for Management and Budget of the federal Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Director of the Bureau of the Budget for the State of Illinois, Chairman of the Illinois Capital Development Board, and Deputy Director of the Illinois Department of Mental Health.

In 2009, Schaeffer established the Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics at USC which uses an interdisciplinary approach to research and analysis to promote health and value in health care delivery and to support evidence-based health policy. He has endowed chairs in health care financing and policy at the Brookings Institution, Harvard Medical School, the National Academy of Medicine, U.C. Berkeley and USC.

Previously, Schaeffer served as President & CEO of Group Health, Inc., EVP & COO of the Student Loan Marketing Association, (Sallie Mae) and as a Vice President of Citibank.

Schaeffer is a graduate of Princeton University and was the Regent’s Lecturer at the University of California at Berkeley, a Gilbert Fellow at Princeton, and a Williams Fellow at RAND. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) and is the Chair of the Roundtable on Quality Care for People with Serious Illness. Mr. Schaeffer was awarded a Doctor of Humane Letters (Hon) from USC and received the inaugural Sol Price Award for his lifetime achievements as a business leader, policy expert and philanthropist.